Breathe a sigh of relief




It's that time of  year again.  About a week left until school starts for Baby Girl. She is going to be in fifth grade this year.  FIFTH GRADE.  I don't know how she keeps on growing.  Dan died in January of her second grade year.  When I say it like that it sounds like a long time ago but it wasn't, it was just the other day.  Baby has been in the same school since kindergarten.  I have loved her school since day one, they are just all around awesome.  They became even more awesome ever since Dan died. Her little public school has been nothing but supportive for both me and Baby Girl, from the principal, to the teachers, to the staff and parents, none of them are going to let us fall through the cracks and get lost.

I'm gonna be straight up honest; I hated fourth grade. Baby Girl was not a fan either. Fourth grade sucked in almost every way. I don't remember third grade being this hard, or the last half of second grade. It must be because we were still in utter shock and just going through day by day. This was part of the problem with fourth grade, the shock was starting to wear off, the fog was starting to lift, and we could feel it. Baby Girl especially could feel it.  It was almost like the t.v show "Vampire diaries" (yes I watch Vampire Diaries) In the show the vampires have the ability to shut their emotions off or on. If life is too difficult they just shut their emotions off. They stop feeling, there's just nothing.  In a way this is what Baby Girl did. Daddy dying was too hard and she just shut her emotions off, she just felt nothing (well there was a lot of anger). I 'm not sure why, maybe it was just plain old time, but last year she decided to start turning her emotions back on. Yay for fourth grade!

It was a rough rough year.  Her grief was catching up to her and she didn't know what to do with it.  Also apparently, fourth grade is when kids start branching out their friend base.  Baby Girls emotions were still stuck in second grade, even her emotions about her friends, so while her besties were ready to make some new friends, she was not. Furthermore, her classroom was very full and I think it is very easy for the quite kids to be overlooked by the not so quite ones.  While there was nothing wrong with her teacher we just did not mesh. I felt like she just didn't get us and didn't understand our grief, which seriously how could she have? There is no way, there's no way to know until you know.  She didn't know us in the before, so she didn't know how much I used to be on top of things and how much I used to volunteer in school. She didn't know how vibrant and energetic Baby Girl used to be. She didn't know us. She didn't know how just getting my one child to school in the morning took all the strength I could possibly muster. Also we were technically homeless (we were living with my in-laws). Did I mention fourth grade was rough? I wish I new a better word for rough, brutal comes to mind. Forget graduating from high school, were not going to make it through fourth grade.

About every other day Baby Girl would come home from school and cry and cry and cry. She would throw giant 'grief tantrums'. She hated going to school and begged me to let her stay home almost every day. That of course stretched into every other aspect of our lives, making everything harder then it already was. She wanted to go back to our old house, our old life. There was nothing I could do.  So I complained, to the principal.  Every time I saw him, which was about once a week I would say "I hate fourth grade" "You know I hate fourth grade right"  he would say something like "ya you may have mentioned that" if we both had time I would go more in depth about why, and how were struggling.  Near the end of the year I would say "I hate fourth grade and I do not want fifth grade"  Please help me figure something out so fifth grade isn't this bad.

The other day we got the letter from school telling us what teacher Baby Girl had.  I was not familiar with this teacher, so I immediately emailed the principal (I wonder how many parent emails he got that day). My email basically said, remember how rough fourth grade was? we can't do that again. Remember how I'm counting on you to have my back and give Baby Girl the very best teacher for her? did you do that? He emailed me back and told me all the reasons he had placed Baby Girl with that teacher and his last sentence was "I think you should breathe a sigh of relief." In other words yes he has my back. Ok I will breathe.

About six months ago we (I guess I mean I since I'm the parent) made the very difficult decision to put Baby Girl on antidepressant medication. It was gut wrenching, medicating your child is not something you do lightly.  Ever since Baby Girl has been doing better and better, especially this summer. People who didn't know her in the before told me how energetic and lively she had become. I smiled and said "ya we started drugging her" then I get a weird look, eh o well. People who did know her in the before have commented on how great she seems to be doing and how back to her old self she is. Yes, thats it, she will never be her old self because her dad is still dead, but she can be more then the empty shell she was, she can be more like her old self. The medication is working wonders.

I had a parent meeting with MTD (magic therapy dude, aka Baby Girls therapist) we too talked about how great she was doing. He pointed out several things that all pointed to her doing well.  For instance she made new friends at summer camp. Her emotions are catching up to her age and she is able to make new friends now. I started crying, I told MTD "I was so worried about her, so worried, and I think she's gonna make it now, I think she's gonna be ok"  There is no description in the world to tell you how much a parent worries about their child. Since Dan died I have worried even more because now, shes scarred, now shes traumatized, worry goes up about 100 more levels. MTD responded "It's like a big weight has been lifted off your shoulders isn't it" Uh ya, I mean I hadn't really thought about it yet but yes. A gigantic weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Baby Girl has made it through fourth grade, she had a great summer. I'm confident she is going to make it through high school now. We are getting back on track for that conquering the world plan.

I can breathe a sigh of relief and it is a really big sigh.

I wrote a book about my grief, you can read it here: Carry on Castle

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